In this middle earth between heaven and
hell our hearts are restless. This is the human condition longing for peace and
purposefulness, hungering for meaning, thirsting for those quiet moments when
everything coheres and we are at one

In the place of spiritual
longing once more

In the
long-drawn perfect peace of morningI come to
prayer.My soul quiet,Though my body
is still crampedBy the strains
of the years now passed.

And I was hopingThat this might be
a new dayAnd that nowI might struggle
in my soulFor the things
long wished for, but stutteringly, inadequately, all too hesitantingly believed

The feeding on
sound breadAnd drinking of
live water.The perpetual
awareness of GodAnd days
enfolded in prayer

I have hoped
here before.And it never yet
went to waste.

At least that is the way it is for me.
Sometimes I think about what a fortunate life I have had. Living in the
prosperous West, being part of a loving family, doing interesting work and being
in a stable, nurturing relationship. These are things to be welcomed and
treasured, but that doesn't stop the hunger, the wonder, the struggle for life

Battle

Yes there is
beautyand worshipand
compassionate serviceand the
necessary activism of love

There is the
inspiration of landscapeand the heart
flung wide to Godand the gentle
kindnessand the white
knuckle struggle for justice

but underneath
it allin the bowelsin the
intestinal engine roomin the darkness

I do battle with
myselfand hereslowlydie

that I might
live

The struggle is for real human life. Not
limited, caged human life that is enslaved to our feelings or bent by a
domineering rationalism, but the beauty of human life as it can be: body, mind
and emotions working together for the full human person

Human Transformation

It is all
struggle this workof human
transformationand most of us
baulk at such effort

for it is hard
enough to understandwhat it might
possibly bebeyond grand
words of doubtful worth

let alone begin
to really changethis human mind
into somethingmore than the
range of rational instinct

Our hurts are so
profoundly thrustinto the secrets
of our tendernessthat healing
must, by nature, be an agony

Nonetheless we
search our restless soulfor hints of
life and revelationmaking our goal
a human transmutation

For me this work of human transformation is
rooted in following the Way of Jesus. When I read the Gospels as a young man I
was drawn into this Way: perplexing, enticing, wildly different from anything
else of which I was aware... and I still find myself drawn into its arms today

Christ the Worker

Come, the arms
say,EnterInto the way

True it is hardMiserable, evenOn the hard day

But enter stillEnterOn the long hard
way

It is beautifulBeautifulLike ice caught
by the sun's ray

So enterEnter nowThis very day

This poem was inspired by a painting of
Christ the Worker in the chapel at the Southwark diocesan retreat house. When I
meditated upon it it seemed as if I heard voice of the risen Jesus saying to me
"Why aren't you doing what you should be doing?". Those words still
haunt me and if I am now, perhaps, somewhat further along that way, I still
need to feel the struggle which these words evoke within me. And I return often
to those who have been good companions on the way -- particularly the early
Egyptian Desert Fathers

of the Desert Fathers

They have come,
the old menAnd pitched a
camp in my heartFinding a dry
caveAnd a quiet
placeThey have made a
home for good

Here in my heartThey patiently
plait ropes and weave basketsThey are in no
rushTheir prayers
demand no actionEverything is
done at the right time

Long ago they
learnt the virtues of waitingThey have
forgotten how to judgeEven though
their eyes see clearly:They wait and
they prayAnd one day I
will come home

I am often swayed, I lose my way, but the
old men help me and I keep searching for the good path. At the heart of this
searching is beginning the day with prayer: a silent waiting on the new day, a
joyful singing of the Psalms, a bending to the words of Scripture

Morning

Thank you LordFor this bright
morningFor sky mottled
with cloudAnd quietness of
world fresh sleeping

My stretches are
callisthenics of praiseMy yawns howls
of worshipI welcome this
morningAnd I welcome
you, Lord of the daybreak

I believe this
day will be differentNot grounded by
grimness of my groaningBut light as the
butterflyDrinking nectar
from the fullness of your flowered morning

Not every day
opens with this bright beautyBut today hope
rises, human and warmAnd we can
permit ourselves, perhaps,An ecstasy of
celebration

Sometimes this morning prayer is joyful,
but it's engine room is the uncomfortable struggle with our human life that
cannot be easily mastered

The Cell

This is my cellHere I must
breatheAir I cannot
choose;Here I must live

Days I cannot
master.It is the
struggleUncomfortableLike the old
monks

But differentMore affluent,
less harshLess solitude,
more noiseBut the Same
Struggle

With demons Inside and outAnd prayer, and
workAnd the body
lived for God

And I try to extend this life of prayer
into the whole day, so that prayer is not a part of the day but the whole day, living
and enlivening within it. But it is hard, my busy self which desires control
and entertainment resists it with everything it has

Climb the Mountain

The track, of course,
is steepThat is the
nature of mountains:Continuous
ascent

The muscle
aches, naturally:Deep in the vastus
As if it is
shrunk to frozen bone

It is all to be
expectedMountains resist
climbingAs humanity
resists prayer

So, sometimes, I must withdraw. Put aside
the world of achievement and status, where doing is all-important and being is
only a shadow in the back of my mind. Here I gather myself and am reminded of
my true nature in the forgetfulness of the world

The phrase 'do what needs to be done' has
become one of the foundation stones of my spiritual life, but it has a sister 'breathe
this moment's breath' which both reflects its presence and shadows it, saying
yes and no, dwelling with it and against it

Live this moment

I can only live
this momentbut past is
present, always:MemoryLearningRecollectionand future also,
lurkingin myWorriesHopesExpectationSomehow I must
live this momentDo the deeds of
this timeManage the
thoughts which tangle and knotMove musclesBreathe breathYesBreathe this
moment's breath

This matter of living in the present moment
interests me greatly. There is a truth in it but also a denial, for it seems to
me that the past and the future are in fact more real than the present. What is
the present? Nothing more than the insubstantial moment of transition between
past and present. Only the life which embraces past, present and future is
truly open to the fullness of human being

The Three Times

It is the living
in the present momentwhich brings
joy,as the sages of
the East taught,

But a man
without past or futurehas no present,for memory
creates him

And reaching
forwardinto unknown
timekindles the
spark.

I desire,
therefore,to grow with the
three times:past, present,
future:

To learn from
what has been,To live in what
isAnd to imagine
what might be

For this is the
eternal struggle

to live without
resentment,superficialityand the greed of
my overreaching plans

I try to remember that it is only in the
present that I can act. But living only in the present is a kind of nightmare.
I remember a TV programme about a man with brain damage who had no memory, he
found this eternal forgetfulness nothing less than despair. And living without
the existence of a real future is a conceited selfishness of the very worst
kind. It reminds me of the leader of a ruined state who exploited it for every
last drop of power and pleasure and joked to his sidekick 'when they have to
pay for this we will all be dead'.

Today

I attempt this,
except it is no trick, no gameBut the very
staff of life:The bread of
thought and will and feeling

To act
decisively in the present,But informed by
the wisdom of the learnt pastAnd inspired by
the hope of a deliberate future

Yet there is
more

For the heart
does not learn, nor the mind hopeBut the heart
dwells lumpenly on dead actionsAnd the mind
lets hope be drowned by fear.

So the past does
not nurture action but poisons itAnd the future
floods with anxiety each passing day.In this manner
joy is leached from the fertile present

And excess of
anger carries away the good soilAnd bitterness
stifles the buds of new lifeBut we must feed
on the good bread

Nurture
ourselves with each new day:Chewing the
deeds of the pastKneading and
letting to rise the acts which are still to come

And so
celebrating the fresh loaf of the new day

Each day we must turn to life. Abba Poemen
said of Pior that for him each day was a new beginning. So each day I must
struggle to turn and repent and commit myself to the Way of Life

The Conversion

A summer day,
heat over the landEarth dustyAnd I realized
“You could be free”In letting go“You could be
free”

Since then I
have not realized the promise.In the land of
shiny carsAnd busy streetsWhat the blue
sky broughtI have not found
it easy to root

But the turning,
I now realizeIs an every day
turningIt is a changing
with the earth’s changingAs rain turns
dust to mud As summer cools
to autumn

And every day I
must decide

In this there is hope. That I can begin to
see in a new way, that I can begin to see beyond my own prejudice and self
absorption, that I can begin to realize the vision about which Ben Okri wrote
"There are things that burn me now/Which turn golden when I am
happy".

Curtain

The tall beechesThe soft forestAn eruption of
fungi.

The great birdPerched, thenLifting heavy
talons skyward.

The quiet valleyUnder larchShaken by swirl
of raven.

Moments when the
heavy curtain betweenman and beastconsciousness
and beingis ripped.Suddenly.

The beauty of nature is a constant source
of possibility. Every day it offers us the possibility of wonder. A single
white flower shining in the mud. The impossible intricacy of a tree's branches
in winter. A flock of longtailed tits chattering through the garden. This is
hardly a world without pain but it offers us never ending images of life and
hope and, in places touched by wilderness, a transcendent presence

Ceunant

It could be
heavenhere among the
silent trees and singing birdsThese mountains
are like the vaults of Paradiseand the streams
laugh with the glee of life

But I bring my
cowed soulBeaten and
burned by the life that stinks of deathI hold to myself
hurts for my own harmand struggle to
breathe this unpolluted air

But here,
struggle is a kind of deathAll that is
necessary are the three old menBreathing,
listening, waitingFor the call of
the quiet Spirit

Here is something more than the life of
constant struggle and exertion. It is the eternal Sabbath when we can rest from
the activity of the human journey. For it is too easy for us to turn even the
spiritual life into a constant exercise of human power and self-improvement.
Certainly action is necessary but so too is non-action

Intervention

A story is told
of an old obstetrician.He was asked his
opinionon the
management of breach delivery

He did not
mention the possibility of a caesarean sectionperhaps aware of
the consequencesof that first
unnatural birth.

He advised the
purchasing of a pint of beerand the drinking
of it very slowlyout of the sight
of the labouring woman.

The story has
always impressed me,Marking me with
the beliefthat a spiritual
birth must also be uninhibited

But it is less
easy to follow this wisdomwhen you are the
expertand there is a
supplicant at your feet

For after allif obstetricians
are not often necessarya midwife
generally is.

Stories such as this open the possibility
of living with wisdom in the world. But they require the ability to listen and
reflect on the multiplicity of stories that swirl around us. Some stories have
captured me and become a permanent part of my internal universe

The Necessary Activism of Love

I have always liked this storytold to me by a friendwho lived in a Third World city

People from
church spent Sunday afternoons reading to blind peopleSimple and
generous, it led to them hearing new storiesabout conditions in the institutionResponding they
joined its management boardbut change was hard and difficultPower lay with
the elected politiciansand so, in the
final transformation of lovethey became
elected representatives themselves

Here was no
program for social changebut merely the
necessary activism of lovegenerating, by
grace, the whole human being:compassionate,
practical and political.

And sometimes stories just seem to dwell in
my heart especially those which are a recollection of childhood and my infant
fears and longings

Ice Cream or the Story of My
Life

I remember
childhood as one long yearning for ice cream.By the time I
could afford to buy them for myselfMy yearnings had
all turned to young women in summer dresses.Now, as autumn
advances, what I hunger for,Not completely,
as if I was entirely forgetful of my younger self,But without the
tantrums of childhoodOr the
melancholy of youthIs the deep
snowfall of silence

But as story falls upon story and the rich
humus of our lives is created I grow tired and long for something which
transcends the transitory happenings of my life. I desire life but also the
beyond-life

Silence

There is a
Silence into which we must all UltimatelyDescendIt comes to us
in the Finality of DeathBut also in the
Expectation of that Final Act

The Sages tell
us that Contemplation of our EndIs the Path to
WisdomBut I wonder if
it is not the Silence of that ContemplationThat is our True
Teacher

For to come into
that SilenceQuietly and
without PowerLiberates us
from the Worry and Pride of LifeReleasing
everything into the Strange Realm

of That Which We
Do Not Know

It is here that I seek healing

Healing

I think about
painno, not exactly
painpain has a
pleasure: the ache of a day well doneThis is
disappointmentnot a sweet,
melancholy sadness,the longing
which does not need to be satisfiedRather the
moments in my life which hurtwhich dwell,
half hidden, in memorybearing the
slime of shame or the wince of anger.

My body is wearisome to me. I live with a
constant battle against chronic pain and disability. I have a hesitancy in
talking about these things but I cannot deny its role in my journey

Living the Long Illness

I hold between
three fingers this pencil:Wood, graphite
and paintI do not know
where it was madeOr who made it

I do not know
what work produced it:The engineer who
fashioned the pencil-making machine,The designer who
decided the pencil's shapeThe worker who
fed the graphite into the bonded wood

But they all
workedMaybe only for
moneyMaybe for
prestige or powerAnd maybe, too,
for the simple joy of making

My body, too,
thirsts for that making:The body
exercised in the simple act of livingBut in that
desire feels, too, its own dis-abilityPain in fingers.
Caustic skin. The weight of no.

This is my work:Living with a
long illnessThe presence of
can't and the quest for canIn the body
weighted with pain and question

I would wish that it was some other way but
my life seems to be determined by this constant struggle and I find it
increasingly necessary to make it central to my life. I remember reading, when
researching an essay on mental illness, of people finding it necessary to say
'I am not my mental illness', but my way seems to have been the opposite.
Although it is important for me to seek healing, somehow that healing only
comes through saying 'This illness is who I am, these are the contours of my
existence. I will build my life around it'.

On Chronic Pain

I offerwithout wordswithout interpretationswithout or analysismy bodyto his bodystretched on the
cross

His bodypiercedbrokenremadein the community
of saints and sinners

I breathe,I breathe, drink,I breathe, drink, swallowthe wine of the
Spiritand follow the
narrow waywithout
explanation or solutionsand without any
words

My body is offered to Christ but this is no
solution. The seeking continues, I often slip, I often forget.

The Path

I search for the
wayIn my fear I am
lostI panicWildly searching
among the rocksI am scratched
by the gorseWet in the
slithering mudBut I cannot
find the path

I knew it onceThe path was
steady leading up out of the rocksOut of the bog
and the thorn bushesOn to the airy
hillSometimes it led
in peculiar placesSteep and skirting
the precipiceBut by this I
knew it was the true path:Underfoot it was
certainNever causing my
boot to slipOr my balance to
lose its sway

And so life continues. I must do what needs
to be done and I'm fortunate to be able to do some work even though the frailty
of my body limits me. As a community development worker my work has been about
engaging with individuals and groups of people, particularly as they seek to
engage with grassroots community action within the context of the church. I
find this a necessary part of my spirituality

Circular

It is the
circular gatheringthat inspires me
most

The nave is
based on the model of the imperial slave ship:Ordered lines of
rowers chained to the oarsSo they could
pull together in the holy navy

And the preaching
barn does not so much elevated the Wordas the PreacherHe (and always
he) knows nothing of the mysteries of dialogue

But in the
circle we discover multi-logue:the many wordsthat, sometimes,in the mystery
of communionbecome One

My work has been about dialogue, the
sharing of stories as a necessary precursor for action. But I have to work with
what I find and in this I have been inspired by Andy Goldsworthy, an artist who
makes art out of the natural environment, bringing recurring themes to the
natural world as he finds it. Sometimes this is as simple as red dust thrown
into the air but he also creates massive structures of rock and stone, always
living with the reality of time and the decay of the natural world. One place
that I have found where I can work with these ideas is the Circle Works which
often causes me to reflect again on one of my recurring themes -- the Desert
Fathers

Ropemaking

for Circle
Works

They needed to
find a way to liveOtherwise how
could they be free?

The desert is
all very well: space, quiet,free real estate
and no institutions to devour you

But we are no
angels; food is necessaryand minimal
amounts of ready cash

Prayer does not
turn stones into breadand solitude
does not clothe freezing bodies

So these
practical men applied themselves:Burning with a
fiery piety, they took

The providential
gift of rushesAnd learning to
twist them into the ropes of their freedom

They found, in
this repetitive, hand-blistering work,A simple way to
still the heart and finance their solitude.

So now in our
mechanical ageWhere such a
simple wilderness seems altogether too remote

We seek again
that solid interweaving of prayer and workWhich will free
us from new demons.

The Circle Works has only been one of many
sites where I have discovered the joys of dialogue and working together -- as
well as its frustrations and disappointments. The wider context of my work has
always been London and in this extraordinary city I have often found a strange
wonder which has lifted me beyond the necessities of work into that place which
feeds my longing heart

London

It was beautifulThe bridge over
the river

The night darkThe lights
countless

London, shrouded
and mysteriousBecomes like
heaven on earth

The greedy ones
become angelsThe noisy ones
seraphs of the celestial choir.

All is serene on
the bridge over the riverIn the late
night, early hours of the shrouded city

But my time in London seems to be coming to
an end and I've must find new places in which to work, wonder and hear the
voices of the celestial choir

A New Perambulation

Perambulation 2.The action of travelling through and
inspecting a territory or region; a survey.1576

Shorter Oxford Dictionary

The end of the
road is always the seaWe can only walk
so far on this small islandBefore all hills
are flattenedAll cities
drownedAll trees
submerged

And over this
surface I cannot pass.A brave soul,
strong or reckless, might attempt to swimBut first of all
we reach for human technologyWhether that be
coracle or supertanker,For miracle is
too distant a possibility to our secular soul.

Yet first I must
stop:Smell the
strange air, feel the unsettling wind,Know a strange
dread at the secret fathoms.This requires
thought, I can walk no longer,The journey must
end here or find a new perambulation.

I await new places in which to search for that
holy balance between a work which deeply engages with the humus of our lives,
the Sabbath rest which breathes the open spaces of the blue sky and that honest
probing of the interior life without which we are nothing more than wreckage
floating upon the unfathomable ocean

And now, there
are too many wordsmy crop is
stuffed with themmy heart choked
with themI suffocate in
their abundance

They are not the
holy words:that brief
breath of the wisewhich sits
lightly upon the eartheasing our
passage to death

But the heavy
words of judgmentand opinion and
noisethe half lives
and the dead truthswhich make men
great and God small

And yet I continue to sing, continue to
seek to find the words that communicate and draw me into that shared search for
meaning, love and useful work

Song

The first words,
perhaps, were sung

An ancient voice
found melodyAnd communicated
the first verbGoComeLook

That tuneful
gruntPiercing the fog
of miscomprehensionMade of the weak
many, the one mighty army of humanity

And when we let
words flowIn that river of
songWe rediscoverThe ocean depths
of our one self

The word which perhaps encompasses this is
Wisdom. It has always been something which has fascinated and drawn me and I am
much persuaded by those three marginalized books of the Hebrew Scriptures:
Proverbs, Job and Ecclesiastes that the quest for wisdom is the very heart of
life.

Wisdom

Wisdom, perhaps,
is to be foundin finding the
right words,for without
communicationwe are all fools

But it must,
alsobe more than the
choice phraseor the bon mot,living most
fully in the education of desire

For wisdom
existsnot in the
possession of the worldbut in the
embrace and the releaseof everything
that is.

drunk on the
spiritshe accepts no
substitutesgorged on truthshe has no need
to vomit.

For in Wisdomeverything is as
it is,desire and
hatred both existbut neither is
the master.